it takes a while to settle down
by theviolonist
Summary: FOR HANNAH, AKA BUT SERIOUSLY. "Iron," he says in a whisper. "Your bones are made of iron. They don't erode. They don't bend. They rust, sometimes, when it rains, when you put them to rest, but if iron goes through fire it's still iron, it never disappears. That's what immortality really means, love, not some hokey promise about loving as long as you both shall live."


"Ready for the big day, love?"

Don't jump. Animals jump. Not you. You're a vampire, Caroline Forbes – remember?

From the corner of her eye she sees him pick up her veil from the chair. He turns it in his fingers. Considering.

"What are you doing here?"

He pouts. She tries to think of something biting – still a child, I see – to take her mind off his lips. He was always attractive, in a strange, powerful sort of way. But she knew that.

"What, no 'welcome back, Klaus, we missed you'? I have to say, I was disappointed when I didn't get an invitation, Caroline, I really was. I thought a wedding was the occasion to bring together all of your old flames."

She thinks, so you could massacre my wedding party? You can dream about it. She says, "I think calling yourself an old flame is a little presumptuous, Klaus. Then again –"

The rest of her sentence never makes it out of her mouth. He has whizzed over to her, vampire speed making his fangy grin a blur. He's touching her dress. Breathe, Caroline. Through the layers she can't feel anything, anyway.

"I never figured you for a pouffy dress kind of girl," he says slowly, almost melancholy.

"Well, it's not like you know anything about me."

This time his fingers are on her naked shoulder; she can feel them. She sucks in breath, and he sees it. He sees everything, except what's most important, which is typical of the men she dates. Not that she ever dated Klaus. One ill-advised hook-up against a tree does not a relationship make.

"Maybe you're right," he says, humoring her. "Do you need help with that garter?"

"Keep your dirty hands off me, Mikaelson," she says, without any heat. The truth is, she's surprised to see him. He can't still be after her. He gave up on that a long time ago, after she told him that sleeping with him, spectacular as it was, would not change anything. You don't fuck with destiny – he's a monster, she's a reformed good girl, it's not made to be.

(She remembers. He laughed at that, when she said, "It's not made to be." Elijah would have said, "It never is," but he didn't, he laughed like something incendiary and suicidal. She read the fury on his lips, but didn't do anything about it.)

"So -" she says to keep the conversation going and off any important topics – if he's not there for her, it has to be supernatural business: he's probably gotten bored again and crafted a new vengeance against one of her friends, and God knows she doesn't want to have to cancel her honeymoon in Haïti to deal with that crap, "what kind of girl did you think I was?"

She sees the mistake in it as soon as she says it. But she doesn't take it back. She doesn't do that. Well, there it is – not the kind of girl who admits her mistakes. You can say that again.

It's funny, too, because she knows what she's afraid he'll answer. _Better_. It's an old fear, a childhood monster: not good enough for her father, who left her, not good enough for her mother, for any of the boyfriends she strings on her heart like fairy lights... why should he be any different?

But he doesn't answer. He leans back against the wardrobe, trying to escape her orbit. A long time ago he thought they would never die, and if they did, their atoms would find their way back to each other. Unrealistic expectations much?

"I wasn't wrong about you," he says, half because of his reluctance to admit he ever is, half because maybe – maybe he wasn't.

She shrugs, uncomfortable. "Yeah, well," but before she can something biting, that will gnaw at his pride, the tip of his fingers – cold – touch her cheek.

She recoils, stung. "What are you doing?" She thinks, we stopped this. We stopped this before it caught on fire and burned us to the ground. One of the few responsible decisions I ever made. She was even proud of it, for a while. "You're not doing this to me."

He arches an eyebrow, _are you sure?_ That was always her problem – she can't say no twice.

"I love Tyler," she says, weakly, already following his pull.

He smiles, the bastard. There's nothing he loves more than winning. "I'm sure," he says, and then his lips are on hers, a shock of coldness that pierces through her spine, digs into the marrow to find old secrets, badly buried longings.

And she does – she lets herself enjoy it, the honeyed sweetness of his tongue, his hand on the nape of her neck, supporting her; the way he seems folded into himself, like all along he was really an angel and packed inside that human skin is an immensity of fury and thunder. He's holding back, and she remembers the story: Zeus, showing his true form. But she won't be reduced to ashes. He's right. She's not that little girl anymore.

She needs her two hands on his chest to push him away, and even then she's not sure one of them won't deviate and bring him back against her. But she's getting married. There's late, and then there's this.

She wipes a hand over her mouth, breathing hard. She probably looks shocked, but she isn't, not really. Still. Old habits die hard – being human never really does.

He rests against the closet again, arms folded, not even winded. His mouth is red, but other than that... she didn't have time to do anything. From here they can leave unscathed, go back home for him, to the altar for her.

"So – why did you take him back?"

She startles. Not the question she was expecting, but... she might as well tell the truth. (Or maybe she wants to. Maybe he's the only one who will hear it and won't judge.)

"He begged. He came back on his knees and begged me to take him back."

Usually she says, we were meant to be, as though she still believed in destiny. She's been trying pretty hard these days, but it's easier now that the narrative almost fits.

"I love him," she adds belatedly.

She expects laughter, mockery, maybe even a biting remark to remind her just how much she loved him a second ago when she was pressed up against him, her tongue in his mouth, but nothing is forthcoming. In a way, his silence is even more of a threat.

He looks at her. He looks at her for a long time, like there's nothing else he can look at, like some new brand of witchcraft has made her the only thing in the world. She doesn't want to enjoy it, but she does. After all, that's what this day is about, right? She can give herself that. Be the star, for once, Caroline Forbes. Who cares what people think. (Besides – besides, they're alone.)

He drinks his fill, and when he's done, he says – he says –

"How long since your last confession?"

– and she almost laughs, because how _dare_ he, what a horrible bastard he is, what a dick, but –

But he holds her stare. His smirk pulls up a bit of lip, shows teeth. (She remembers.) She doesn't remember. After all these years they look the same but she lost the sensory memory of his teeth on her neck, his fingers on her thighs, him inside her. Once upon a time he said, in the mess of his promises, that he would help her remember _everything_, like him. She wonders if he remembers it.

"I do," he says.

He says all the wrong things, and he knows it. _I do_ - in thirty minutes she will be the one at the altar, she'll be the one to say those words, God holding the ruler over her fingers in case she says the wrong thing. Good thing she could tear his throat out, now.

"You know I do, love. Did you really think I would forget?"

She didn't.

There are three things inside of her at this very moment: words she doesn't want to say; her heart, beating like a mad drum; and the monster she's been keeping on a tight leash since that night in the woods. (But Tyler loves her. Isn't that all she's ever wanted, a nice boy who loves her enough to take her to the altar, walking down the aisle of a real church without feeling like a fraud? He can't rob her of that.)

She turns to the mirror. It's like turning her back to him; if she concentrates, she can even forget his face is there, at the periphery, floating near the gilded edge. It's not that she wants to see him, not really: but you have to keep an eye on the savage beast behind you, that's just how it works. Right?

Here he is again, with the veil. She feels an urge to tear it away from his hands. What will he touch next – her ring? He looks thoughtful. Never a good thing.

"Do you remember that time you asked me – what was it – if there wasn't one single moment in my whole life where I wanted to be human?"

She holds her breath. She doesn't mean to – she just does. Curiosity's always been on her list of sins.

"Well," he continues, "I thought about it, I really did. And I think," he lets the silence hang, what a drama queen, "I think this question is about you."

She should've seen him coming – he was on the edge of her mirror, after all, her way of keeping him at bay, an eye on his movements at all times. But he's always been good at sidestepping her defences, and maybe she didn't really look that hard, because there he is – three fingers touching the middle of her back, brushing the knobs of her spine. She sucks in breath. She remembers choosing the fabric for the dress, she said to the shop assistant, get me the thinnest, most expensive silk you can find, and then she popped her sunglasses back on. Did she know – even then?

"Really?" she whispers. She toes her shoes off. If need be, she'll run. She knows how to do that.

He rests his forehead against her collarbones, very gently. His breath through the cloth is like a lick of fire. She feels her foundations crumble; her feet are frozen, her heels ache.

"Yes. Because you believe," is he kneeling? She thinks, it's not the time for prayer, but they're in a church, after all, "that only humans can have this. Weddings, white dresses, happiness."

"Well," she says, her voice brittle, "isn't it true?"

"Can't a vampire buy a ring?"

She laughs, to chase away the sensation that any loud noise might shatter her.

"If you would let me, Caroline Forbes, I would take you to the altar. I would marry you a hundred times over, in a hundred different churches, beneath a hundred different suns, and still I would be who I am, and you would be who you are." He says it all in one breath, like he's nervous. But Klaus Mikaelson doesn't get nervous. She has to hang on to her myths, otherwise it's chaos.

"That's just arrogance," she says.

"Maybe. Think of it as a baptism by fire," he says, "like drowning and still surviving, like getting stronger. You know, when Esther turned us I thought it was a curse, too. We all did. Then the werewolf side of me... I was incensed. I killed her. And then I realized, there are only so many times you can get cursed before it becomes a blessing."

"You'd have an alternative career as a motivational speaker," she says. It's like sticking your fingers in your ears and singing la di da di da so you don't listen, because if you listen you might understand.

He ignores her. He says, "What do you think your bones are made of?"

"What kind of question is that?" A trap. All his questions are traps.

He turns his cheek against her back; his hands on her hips, the tip of his fingers touching her belly through the lace. So much lace; she should have worn chainmail underneath.

"Iron," he says in a whisper. "Your bones are made of iron, like mine, like Tyler's for all it matters. They don't erode. They don't bend. They rust, sometimes, when it rains, when you put them to rest, but if iron goes through fire it's still iron, it never disappears. That's what immortality really means, love, not some hokey promise about loving as long as you both shall live."

"Klaus Mikaelson is a cynic," she snarks – keep her head up, above the water, "who would've thought?"

The sound of her zipper is deafening in the silence of the room. Suddenly she wishes there was noise outside, a clamor, to pretend that she's taken by surprise. That she couldn't resist.

His lips brush her spine. "I'm not, love," he says softly, and she can't help but shiver. "I'm a believer."

She'll blame the weather – it's hot, clammy, she wanted a June wedding – for the way she falls back into his embrace, eyes shut, neck stretched, the picture of surrender. Good thing Tyler is a traditional guy, wouldn't see her in her wedding dress today until she makes her way down the aisle.

Tyler. God. Maybe they're all betrayers, after all – maybe the iron from their bones eventually leaks into the hearts. She thinks about asking him, he seems to have the science of it down, but his fingers slide on her neck and suddenly she's looking into his eyes. Her head is pounding with blood. She tries not to look, it won't make anything better, but... did he swallow the sun? If there was ever a time to hate him, it's now.

"Promise," she whispers when their lips are almost touching, not a breath away.

He knows what she means: he promised her a hundred things, but he knows what she means. The only promise that really matters; the one he broke.

(He kisses her.)

And she thinks about pushing him away again, she does, she's going to, except – does it really matter, if he doesn't promise to leave? She can chase him. She's strong. That's the nice thing about being a creature no one really believes exists: you can make your own mythology.

She'll make him promise. She'll twist his neck and break his bones, she'll wreck him like no one's ever wrecked him before and she'll make him vomit his confessions, beg to never be allowed near her again. Sure, he's an Original. But these days there's always someone more powerful around the corner, it's only a matter of time before he finds his own predator. Who knows? Maybe it's her. Maybe it was her all along. Maybe she's the plot twist and the reason no one told her is because she's part of the story. No spoilers, right?

Shoeless, she presses up on her feet, twists her hand in his shirt. His back hits the ground and he makes a soft hiss, surprised. She doesn't pay attention. If this happens it will be take, not give – since her impunity is lost, let her retain control. She hitches her dress so that it shows her ankles, so that she can walk, and crouches over him. He smiles.

He extends a hand, _come here_; but she will not be coddled.

The way they fall into that kiss is brutal, seamless, irreverent. First she curls her fingers around his jaw but without her consent they creep up and close around his skull, trying to find the iron he was speaking of in his bones.

He breaks free long enough enough to ask, smug, his lips wet and red, "Will you take his name?"

She always did have terrible judgment. (She always did have terrible judgment: she remembers thinking that when she woke up in that hospital room, irrevocably changed, hungry beyond anything she had ever known before.)

She cranes her head away far enough to glare at him with full potency. To his credit, he actually looks chastised. He gets his hands on her waist, fingers twisting the lace, pulls her to him. He might want to tear off her gown, but she won't let him. There's a limit to the havoc she will let him wreak on her wedding day.

He says something against her teeth, it might be "love" or it might be "I love you," but she finds that in the end she doesn't care. Better not to ask him, anyway – he might not give her the right answer. Instead she enjoys the scrape of his stubble against the soft skin of her throat, and in return she laves her tongue laving over his pulse point, swallowing the rhythm of his heart. With the tightening of his hands she feels something mount in her, an urge – but she ignores it, thinks, thank God I didn't put my make-up on yet.

It's a thing, with them – they frame the skin with their hands and they pull, try to tear the truth out of it. With her gown up to her knees she feels more naked that she would if she'd stepped out of it cleanly; but her hands are full, nails raking his skull, the nape of his neck, tugging on the corners of his mouth to reveal his teeth, remind her of what he is. What they are. Not that ill-suited, when you think about it.

She thinks about saying it to him, but he will jump on the occasion and she won't say no. They're all down there in the church, stacked in rows on the benches, waiting for her. This time she won't disappoint. She'll show up late, but she will show up, decked in white, blushing like any good bride ought to. It's not that she believes in predetermination, not really – although it's hard not to sometimes – but who would resist to their kiddie dream leaping off the drawing and into reality? Exactly.

He smells like something he brought from the outside, the sharp air of the open road with a piquant aftertaste of blood. She sinks her teeth into his earlobe, chasing the origin. He doesn't so much as wince.

"Let down your hair," he says urgently, like every bad romance novel ever.

She snorts. "No way. It took me forever to do, you're not ruining my 'do just because you like your women free and loose, Mikaelson."

Her voice seems to pull him out of his daze. He grins up at her, unrepentant. "You have the oddest concerns, love."

She doesn't let herself think about it, how absurd this all is, because she might not go through with it and the thing is she wants it, she wants it even more than she did the first time. She knows how it feels now - shreds of old memory nibbling at her at her nerve ends, urging her on. When she tears his shirt open it gives easily under her hands. Once more she's surprised by her strength, a bit disconcerted, but he isn't. He shows his fangs, and before she can think about what's happening he's looming over her, holding a hand out. She shivers, robbed of the warmth of his body. Werewolf warmth, she thinks: they run like furnaces, those boys. Well. He's not a boy, not really.

But she takes his hand, and she lets him waltz her back to the table; when he makes all her make-up fly with a fell swoop of his hands she smothers a scream, surprise more than dismay. Still, she will have to figure something out for later. But he doesn't seem to care, and maybe he did it on purpose, he always did have a ridiculous possessive streak. The thing is - the thing is - she doesn't care, and she ought to, but she doesn't. Before the cold glass of the mirror touches her feverish skin she has gotten her mouth on him again, carving bites into the willing skin of his throat, his chest, his cheeks. He breathes out a moan. She lets it course through her body, once, twice, like fuel, before she clamps a hand over his mouth.

"Shut up," she says. "Someone will hear."

For a second he looks like he can't hear her, or understand, but soon enough his smirk slots back into place and he quirks an eyebrow, _would you really mind?_ Maybe she wouldn't. She's not going to find out, though.

He takes her face in his hands, pressing so hard she feels like her bones might give. (They won't.) His fingers trace her cheekbones, try to impress his fingerprints into the fabric of her, a keepsake. Something borrowed. His kiss is nothing more than the press of his lips against hers, drinking her lipstick, trying to take back the bulk of his control. She would say she pities him, in a way, because she knows what it feels like to love something that is slipping away. But he'll survive. He's lived to be here today, hasn't he? Love cannot be that rare an occurrence. (It cannot. If it is then she is lost, and she is not lost, not to him.)

She doesn't know what possesses her to offer, open her mouth and offer the one thing she thought she might keep from him, from his contamination, "You can drink from me if you want."

He stills. Frozen, she realizes how heavy, how hot his body is between her legs, his hips slotted against hers, as close as she'll allow. His eyes bore into her lips; without meaning to she imagines his fangs scraping against her throat, represses a shiver.

There's no answer forthcoming, so she tears her hand from the hot skin of his back, nails still caked with his blood. Her palm opens like a flower. She sees his mouth water.

"The offer is one-time only," she says softly, pretending she isn't as rattled by this as he is.

His fangs cut neat into her heartline with the skill of a butcher, and they both watch the blood pearl up like an elixir as she flexes her fingers, transfixed, their heartbeats filling the room. Has she ever done this? But she can't think, too taken by the moment, the expression on his face, as awed as if he had been offered a cup of ambrosia and he licks his lips, takes her wrist, delicate, reverent... He doesn't ask her if she's sure.

For some reason she expects it to hurt, maybe because blood has always been something that hurts and she's not been a vampire for half as long as she was a human, a creature of cuts and bruises and scraped knees kissed by her reluctant mother. But if it hurts it's an exquisite pain, that goes with the pure ecstasy on his face, the heat of his tongue and those pupils exploding in front of her. How beautiful he is - twice as beautiful like this as he ever was in his composed trickster mask, true, raw, real -

"Kiss me," she says.

Her blood tastes like cherry vodka. He smiles against her mouth, his fangs still drawn, sticky and dripping into her mouth. It's a strange form of cannibalism, and every drop is a shot of pure heat into her stomach, that makes her twine her legs around his waist and pull him into her, her hands fumbling at his belt, consumed by vampire heat.

She keeps waiting for his asshole remark, _there's no rush, love_, but he keeps quiet, alternating between sucking on her palm and kissing her, open-mouthed and obscene, feeding her her own blood. She's enjoying it - too much, so much that if she still believed in heaven she would expect to catch ablaze any second now. It feels like it. Blood sparkling in her gut, it feels a lot like burning.

Her words from a lifetime ago come back to her, _anyone capable of love is capable of being saved_, and she wonders, what did I think being saved meant? The thought spurs her on.

"My turn," she says, and she has just the time to his eyes widen, he certainly didn't expect this, before she sinks her fangs at the juncture of his neck and his shoulder, where the skin is stretched and hot and tense, sinews and veins tangling, full with delicious blood. Except it isn't delicious to her - her throat clogs almost immediately, the pain scorching and intense. Klaus jerks away, violently enough to dislodge her. Her fangs come up black. Klaus's eyes are wide, panicked.

"Are you insane, sweetheart? What are you doing? Did you forget my blood was poison?"

She feels sweat gather in beads on her upper lip. Cold washes over her. Her shoulders shake, the pain brutal. How long before she starts hallucinating? she wonders. Klaus used to say his blood would kill them in one day, but it can't be that precise. Nature rarely is.

"No," she croaks out, her voice hoarse. To defend her her system has broken out the vampire apparel, bloodshot eyes and apparent veins. Now they're matched, fang for fang. "I didn't forget."

He doesn't say anything, just looks at her. For once he can't tell in advance what she's going to say, do. It feels good. The sweeter the reward – she could tell him, but that would take all the fun out of it.

"Come on," says Caroline, and she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls his forehead against hers, his fangs still drawn, "give me a little bit more. You know how to do it, don't you? Heal me."

This time he doesn't hesitate; in a millisecond he has torn open the skin of his wrist and his blood is pouring down her throat, heavenly. Between two avid gulps she says, "Be careful, don't stain my dress."

He looks down. His hand slides to her breast, her stomach, her hip - more delicately than she would have thought him capable of he peels the dress off her, helps her step out of it, fingers gliding on her bare thigh, bumping over her garter, his wrist still held against her mouth.

Her head is spinning; she thinks, I was right, he is poison and cure all in one. A drop of blood drips from his wrist to her décolleté but he catches it before it can stain her silk bra, tracing a finger against the skin of her breast then feeding his blood back to her. She grins, fanged.

"You see?" she says. "It's awesome."

(Maybe, just maybe, she's crossing things off her bucket-list, things she'll never be able to do again once she's Mrs Lockwood. He doesn't have to know, though.)

He stares at her, transfixed. Impressed. At last a slow smile spreads on his mouth. "Beautiful," he whispers.

She laughs – what else is there to do? She laughs, her mouth full of blood, that blood which now tastes like salvation, thick and velvety in her throat. She presses a clumsy kiss to his mouth, to see if her laughter infects him, and it does. His eyes are glowing, wolf eyes. That turns her on in Tyler too; but now she's past guilt, past worry, just pure instinct. She presses forward.

He reacts like he always, in a millisecond, changing faces like he would masks, one instant a worried man holding her at arms' end, incapable of understanding, and the next a beast latching onto her neck. Which is how she likes her men, to be perfectly honest. Confused and savage.

(Jackpot, says a mean little voice at the back of her head. Two for the price of one.)

The thing is, though, about all that blood business, is that it feels organic. Completely normal, something you do without thinking, and that's what she did – her nose pressed against the back of his shoulder felt the best she had in a while. Which is weird – isn't it?

Except Klaus doesn't find it weird. The surprise passed, he's all over her, big hands spanning her back, the inside of her thighs – she keens, he's good at this, has always been –, coming up to take her shoulders and push her backwards, thumbs pressing into the bone. And Caroline – she feels quartered. It's a strange thing to say, stranger still to feel.

His mouth touches the spot between her breasts, right where a knife would go. His lips burn her through, coming neat out of her back like a bullet and yes, she had forgotten that, how violent everything about him is, how even his tenderness feels like vindication. It's fine, though – she can be mean too. She doesn't have to be nice all the time.

She knots her hands around his neck, a stranglehold, pushes him down until he's on knees. For a second, just one, he stands there with his head bowed, bested – for her to see, she thinks, but maybe not entirely – then he looks up at her, some crusted blood at the edge of his smile.

He tilts his head, like, _you know what you want_.

Yes. Yes, she does.

And he obliges, because that's who he is with her; he noses at her underwear while he slides it down her thighs very gently, the whisper of silk against skin, until she breathes out, exposed. He grins against her hipbone. For a second of unbearable lucidity being pressed against the wall in only her bra with his face between her thighs seems blatantly, unnaturally _wrong_, then it ebbs.

He touches her with his mouth, just once, lightly, and her whole body spasms. He whispers, "Would you come away with me, if I asked?"

She thinks, _how far would you chase me?_ But – "No," she says.

His tongue darts out; she turns her face into the wall, cheek pressed against the cold surface, unable to supress a moan. "Really?"

She breathes through her nose, once, twice. "Yes, really," she snaps. "I don't lie."

He laughs – the tension of it is delicious, and then he seems to get it, by the pressure of her hands on the top of his head, fingers tugging his hair as though she wanted to pull it out in clumps, by the vice of her thighs, and he opens his mouth and gets to it. It was worth the wait.

It doesn't take him long to get her on the edge, the point where people bite their wrists so hard the teethmarks stay there for weeks, the point where you feel like your orgasm might rip you apart and kill you. He knows it, though. She can feel his smirk against her, it's maddening and irritating at the same time, which describes about most of their actual interactions.

His fingers curl around her thigh. "Come on, sweetheart," he says, coaxing.

Banging her head back when she does come actually hurts her, but he's here almost before she can feel the pain, cradling the back of her head with one hand, fingers working their way into her tightly-made bun. He would make her think that he is... Belatedly she registers he has a thigh wedged between hers, his jeans tented up, that he's hard against her.

(When she feared him – when did she ever stop? Nothing has changed – that used to be part of it. Elijah dresses like a real villain, and Rebekah, too, but he's always in jeans and a T-shirt and that stupid necklace, as if... if you didn't know, if he kept the manic grin under lock and key he could almost pass for an inconspicuous tourist, Americanized to perfection. She had thought, evil hides underneath those clothes, and she had been frightened.

Now the divide between good and evil has gotten a little blurry.)

Still slightly shaky, she tugs at his jeans, hands missing his open belt by an inch or two. His bright eyes sparkle; he chases her hands, slides it out himself, with no shyness whatsoever. A pang of sharp and unexpected jealousy goes through her: he must have done that a lot, in the last few centuries.

His feet catch in something as he steps backwards, toeing his jeans away – her dress, carelessly thrown away, so rigid it's standing up on its own, like a ghost bride. It reminds him of something; he looks up, hands a vice on her shoulders. Holding her back – just an inch away from his mouth, like he wants to show her how much she wants this. She won't give him the satisfaction, though.

"I thought you'd give up on this," he says. For once there's no trace of mockery in his voice, no sarcasm. It almost sounds like a different person speaking. "The white dress, the shining knight, that whole array of senseless dreams."

She tilts her chin up, defiant. "So what? Can't I have what I want, just for once? I've dreamed about this since I was a kid." It's true – she did. And it felt good, putting on the dress, being the bride, for once. The princess.

"Do you, still?" He lets go of her shoulder to rub a hand across his face but she keeps in place. Phantom hold. "Does he know that you've changed? Do _you_ know?"

She shakes her head. Too violent; a hairpin gives way and her hair cascades on her shoulders, a clatter of pins on the ground. It feels like exhaling, and she hadn't realized she was holding her breath. He looks at her, struck. "What do you care? I thought you were here to get your stupid revenge against Tyler." It's out of her mouth before she even realizes it, and it hangs between them, heavy.

He laughs, flummoxed. "Is that what you think, love? You think I'm here for my stray cub, years after I promised you – and him – I would stop hunting him?" She thinks, yeah, well, it's not like you have the best track record with promises. Or maybe it's just her. "My, that's some serious denial you've got going on here. Sorry to disappoint you on that one, love, but this -" he opens his arms, like there is anything real between them except her underwear and his jeans, "this is all about you."

She reaches for him. She doesn't want to hear it, is the thing. There's no time: the plane tickets are non-refundable. He goes willingly; his mouth against hers is uncharacteristically sweet, yielding. She misses the taste of bad blood.

"Did they tell you," he murmurs against her lips, the warm breath makes her shiver, the taste of her in the crevices of his mouth, "did anyone tell you how powerful you are? It's not just about drinking blood, love."

She snorts. "Yeah, it's about mass killings and creating an army of freak zombie werewolves, is that it? Or do you have a new moronic overlord plan up your sleeve?"

His brows furrow, like he's holding the fury back. He's so used to people letting him have his way. Even his siblings, they're used to his tantrums; they indulge him, tune him out until he's done. He's a king all right: people look at him and never listen. He can't bear that she doesn't let him be her messiah. Well – tough luck, pal.

"I'm not trying to get you to run away with me –" _Again_.

She shakes her head. "Forgive me for not believing that, Klaus. Literally all you've ever done since we've met is try to manipulate me into liking you."

She sees the jackass remark hover over his lips - _well, it worked, didn't it?_ - and not far behind the question - _do you?_. And – no. She doesn't like him. Things would be exponentially easier if she did.

"I'm just saying, love. You shouldn't let that dress wear you."

She hides a tremor. Fuck him and his advice. She doesn't need it. "Fashion advice from Klaus Mikaelson, thanks, I'll try to remember that. Can we go back to it now, please?"

He won't get asked twice – won't hold out any longer. In the end for all he might try to be good he never will be, and that's why there was never any chance for them in the long run. Not that she considered it, she didn't – conflicts of interest and all that. So when you think about it having this almost makes sense: it's her wedding present to herself, a fancy monster wrapped in rustling paper, all sharp edges and smooth promises he doesn't intend to keep. It's an indulgence.

He slams into her, kinetic energy uncaring of his DNA, and on instinct she flips them over, trapping him with her body, slight as she is. He smiles at her dazedly, as though to say, _good_. It angers her enough that she tears his underwear away in one movement, her nails sharp enough to be claws. His hands close at her back, nails digging into the flesh when she presses herself against him, aligns them.

For a second: silence. For a second he won't look at her and he looks absolutely wrecked, as if she had taken everything from him, his face naked and hateful and raw, like everything he had feared all those times he said he felt nothing, wanted to feel nothing, was happening now. Caroline curls a hand at the nape of his neck, hitches herself up with a sigh, almost tender. It's fine. The things that happen now they won't remember, and if they do, well – it doesn't count.

But he regroups, his hands splay and tighten on her hips and he moves with her, finally, sighs in her mouth and licks the sweat and makeup on her throat, grins on her skin when her breath hitches. The silence is so loud. Caroline had said there would be music at her wedding, rowdy and joyful and real; she had said, I've had enough silence for a lifetime. In the end it never really happened. They agreed: dead silence in the church, and then at the reception everything she wants. Well, as long as – but marriage is about compromise.

("Aren't you a little young to get married?" had asked Elena, as though she hadn't had the bulk of her own devastating love stories before reaching twenty.

"Well, it's not like I'm ever going to get any older, is it?" At the time it had been cheerful, finally triumphing over death, but now it seems a little sad.)

They lose themselves in it. No, it's the truth: they lose themselves in it the way they never really have, in the synchronized rhythm of their hips and their breathing and the slack kisses and their braced arms and tense legs, and in the joy of it, the pleasure but mostly the _joy_. It's intimidating, is what it is.

She throws her head back and with perfect timing he licks a long stripe up her throat, angling his hips just right. He keeps pressed against her, impossibly close, one hand under her ass and the other on her breast, teasing. He touches her like he wants to find the place where the match will strike the purest, bluest flame: right there on the underside of her breast or in the cradle of her thighs, or where their hips slam into each other with a clang of bones.

He opens his mouth and she's afraid he'll say something, but if there are words they never make it out of his mouth. They hang onto his lips, unused, as he strikes forward – her eyes shut in immediate reaction, pleasure spiralling in her gut – and takes her head in his hands, fingers buried in the mass of blond hair. He kisses her – of course he kisses her – why wouldn't he kiss her? - but it's the sort of kiss you need bleach to wash out of your mouth, not soap; the kind of kiss that's a tattoo, that's a speech, that's a whole lifetime of compressed memory branded on her lips like a gift.

That, and – and he moves and it's violent and perfect and she can't keep it in anymore, that wave that's been an ebb and flow in her stomach since he came in. She gasps. Klaus looks striken, but satisfied, something possessive and important. She'd been holding onto him almost by the sole force of her heels digging into his thighs, but this time he reaches to steady her. Two broads hands splaying on her back, where wings would've been.

"Love," he says, which she will not analyze, not now not later not _ever_, because she doesn't need to, she –

She falls apart. And it takes him by surprise but he does, too, his face contracts and he's a vampire – a hybrid – again for a hot and striking second, his eyes surrounded by a labyrinth of veins. He goes limp against her, they're locked in a tight, sweaty embrace. She breathes in deeply, to supplement the memory. She can learn by herself, how to keep it forever. She's always been something of an autodidact.

She slides down the wall, exhausted. For a while they say nothing and the silence is almost comfortable, almost alright. Then –

"What time is it?"

He looks around him, reaches for her phone on the floor. She sees it blinking from the distance, wants to recoil from it like a ticking bomb.

"You're late," is all he says. "Tyler won't be happy."

She rolls her eyes, huffs, but her heart isn't in it. She feels like she's been unknotted, like from a creature of tendons and sinews she has been turned into the sea. He holds out a hand to help her stand up, gallant as always. Doesn't he feel tired?

She takes her phone from his hand and turns his back to him, still naked. With the tips of his fingers he traces the marks he left on her back, a sample of scars like he branded so many other people with. Those will be gone soon, though – before her wedding night. The skin will close over them but Caroline knows they won't disappear, not really, not completely. He wouldn't have bothered marking her otherwise, if he wasn't sure she had a keepsake, something to remember him by. She can't really blame him for it either.

He was right: she _is_ late, by a margin. Fortunately enough they probably expect it from her, itty bitty Caroline Forbes freaking out about tying the knot, that sounds just like her. Such a control freak. Such a silly girl. She's surprised someone hasn't been to see her yet, but they're probably assuming she's doing her make-up over and over again. Yeah. She would.

She risks a glance at the mirror, just to see what she knew would be there: her hair a battlefield, mouth ravaged, red, and the collar or bites around her neck – all things that she'll have to hide. Still. She feels good about it, for some reason – she got something she wanted, got a second taste of the forbidden fruit. That's what growing up is all about, isn't it?

"You alright, love?" he asks behind her. She'd forgotten he was there, she realizes, faintly amused.

She turns around: he hasn't bothered to put anything back on, is just there, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Waiting.

"I'm fine," she says. And she is. Why wouldn't she be?

He smirks from the side of his mouth. She rolls her eyes – of course. Of course he would assume it's all about him. He watches her put her underwear back on, first her bra and then, as she reaches to pick her panties off the ground, he darts forward and snaps them out of her reach. She arches an eyebrow. How irritating.

He tilts his head, cajoling. "May I?"

She considers it; in the end shrugs. "Why not." She sits on the piano stool in front of the make-up table, legs crossed primly. Where is that garter? She needs it.

He comes to her on his knees. Oh, she could like that, a man who... He comes to her on his knees, smiling like an animal. When he takes her feet in his hand it's like he's re-enacting a scene from _Cinderella_. He's cheesy and a drama-queen, but sue her, she likes it.

She lets him dress her after that, her garter that he finds, a string of pearls, earrings she hadn't had the time to put on before he invaded her. She won't let anyone else do her hair, though, and he doesn't touch her wedding dress. Why does he want her? Now is not the time to ask herself that, but she does. Why does he still want her, after all this time, after he's had her once? What qualifies her for that kind of love?

Of course it's the moment he chooses to ask, casually enough, "You know, darling, if you..."

But she cuts him off before he can get to the heart of it, presses a heated kiss to his mouth, lips sliding wide and filthy for a moment before she pulls away. _You know the answer,_ she lets her eyes say.

He turns away from her, a second to compose himself. Now he will pretend he never had anything to say. Which is better, really, for everyone.

"Klaus," she says after she's finished with her make-up and she looks almost everything the bride she was an hour ago. "Will you help me with that zipper?"

He lets his fingers slip into the stiff fabric of the dress. He still doesn't like it but he's trying to make the edges softer, more comfortable for her to breathe in. She pulls away as soon as the zipper is up. Tenderness makes her uncomfortable, so close to the hour.

"I'm sure you'll have a blast," he says, trying for mordant. But he sounds thoughtful, like he's half talking to himself.

She twists into his hold. They stand at arms' length for a while, not moving in to embrace or even to kiss, just watching. He raises a hand and touches her face, memorizing the lines of it: jaw, ears, cheekbones, eyes. When the pad of his thumb brushes her mouth she can't repress a shiver. Suddenly she wants to explain, why she won't run away with him, why they would never be happy, why it wouldn't work, why they would burn each other to the ground – then she remembers. He won't listen. He's – he's a believer, he's a godling, he thinks that anything can happen if you want it enough.

(And besides – how sure is she?)

One last pin to hold her hair up and she's all ready to go. He catches it in her movements, grabs the last few scraps of his clothing on the ground and pulls them on. He retreats to the door. She thinks about holding out a hand, asking him not to go, to lead her to the altar – but that would be unjust. He might be a master of cruelty... no, not her.

On his way out he notices the ring on the dresser. He takes it and turns it in his hands, running his fingers on the smooth silver. Caroline thinks about tearing it out of his hands, but in the end she doesn't.

"Is that your engagement ring?" he asks, sounding more cheerful than he did a minute ago.

"Yes," she says, defying him to make a comment about it. But he does, of course he does – he wouldn't be Klaus Mikaelson if he didn't.

He purses his lips. "Could've splurged for more than 20 carats," he remarks mockingly. "He's a tad cheap, your boy."

Caroline rolls her eyes. Baiting her isn't _that_ easy.

"Well, love," he says eventually, "this is goodbye, I suppose."

She ducks her head. "I guess," she says.

When she raises her eyes he's looking at her. He doesn't ask her not to go, he knows the answer to that question, he remembers asking her to go to New Orleans with him a lifetime ago. He doesn't ask her anything else. He doesn't give her an acid word of congratulations, or ask her to remember. He shrugs with one shoulder, hands her her bouquet. She always thought she'd get lilies, but those are roses. White. More traditional.

"Do you know your lines?" he asks, to have the final word.

She nods, too tired to fight. He can't resist a last dig, a parting gift, something for her to remember him by. Funny, how he lacks self-confidence sometimes, for an original vampire.

"I thought you didn't lie?"

She smiles. It looks almost genuine. Only he could tell the difference, because he has drawn her smile a hundred times, notebooks full of the specifics of it.

She tilts her head. "Yeah, well," she says, "I learned from the best."

As soon as he vanishes in the soft shadows of the corridors, she drops to her knees, winded. She feels like a bond has been severed and all the strings that were holding her up have failed. She breathes in, once, twice. But she's Caroline Forbes, she thinks – she's always been a survivor.

So she stands up again. What other choice is there?

* * *

He's not in the crowd. Rebekah, even Elijah – they probably followed him up there, and now they're sitting on the church benches, their hands nicely folded on their knees, pretending not to be bloodsucking fiends.

But not him.

Still – when Caroline says, "I do," – and means it – she looks up and the stained-glass throws his image back at her, Klaus Mikaelson with his hands raised palm-up like a saint, looking down at her without kindness.

Then she blinks, and he's gone. Caroline takes a breath and turns back to the priest.


End file.
